14th Illinois EU Studies Conference Panel Recap: “Race and Racism in TV Series, Hollywood Movies and Films"

by Kelsi Quick, PhD Student in Political Science and Research Assistant at the European Union Center

The 14th Illinois EU Studies Conference, "Paradigms of Racialization: Alternative Sources," continued on April 19 for its second day of presentations. The first panel of the day, “Race and Racism in TV Series, Hollywood Movies and Films,” focused on the ways in which conceptions of race and ethnicity shape and are shaped by entertainment media, especially through Hollywood production.

Robin Williams as Vladimir Ivanoff in "Moscow on the Hudson" 

Flavia Ciontu, a PhD student in American studies at University of Paris 8, presented research by the title “‘You are white ... even if you are Russian': Whiteness and Immigration in Moscow on the Hudson (1984).” Her research, which analyzes the 1984 film "Moscow on the Hudson" starring Robin Williams, explores how a Russian saxophonist and immigrant to the United States experiences integration and assimilation, paying particular attention to what extent the main character’s experience of cultural and ethnic difference does and does not represent the experience of immigration to the United States. She highlights how although the protagonist, Vladimir, experiences challenges to integration, he still benefits from his status as a white male, which differs from the experience of immigration held by people of color. Ciontu ultimately argues that the film is a celebration of American culture rather than ethnic particularity that promotes the racist myth of easy assimilation. She argues that critical engagement with films such as this allows for the unraveling of racial dynamics in discourses on race and prevalence of whiteness in discussions on assimilation.

Sébastien Lefait, a professor of English studies at Aix-Marseille Université, presented research by the title “Introducing New Sources to Understand Hollywood’s Biased Treatment of Racism in the US.” In Lefait’s analysis of 134 films, which was co-authored with Olivier Esteves (University of Lille), both statistical and qualitative analysis is utilized to examine the ways in which Hollywood presents and reinforces a biased perspective on the history of racism in the United States. The results of the research indicate that of the films that depict studies of racism, the ones most likely to be critically-acclaimed, Oscar-winning films are also more likely to be films that are set in the Deep South and in time periods of over 50 years in the past. This trend, Lefait argues, reinforces the notion of “Southern exceptionalism” that tends to depict the South as uniquely racist while overlooking racism in the Northern and Western United States. Adding other sources such as educational materials from the case of France, Lefait further demonstrates how this myth of “Southern exceptionalism” extends outside of the U.S. and can be seen in France as well, and even at a global level. Ultimately, this trend of bias in Hollywood and also in other sources such as schoolbooks leads Lefait to conclude that a bias in the treatment of racism in the U.S. persists, largely appearing in the form of Southern exceptionalism, as a historical problem that has been “resolved,” and as an individual rather than systemic issue.